“Jake, that’s crazy talk,” Merkin said, pushing his chair back. “You’ve got to know that.”
“No, I don’t know that,” Jake said. “What I’m afraid of is that somebody at a low level, an operator—Ms. Packer, for instance—knows that something’s going on, and they think they’re being smart. I don’t really believe that you guys know about it, because you really are smart.” He nodded at Merkin as he said it, the flattery principle, “. . . but somebody, somewhere does. And if it’s somebody who thinks he, or she, is being smart . . . well.” He shrugged.
Merkin looked at Packer: “You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t.” She looked at neither Merkin nor Jake, and Jake felt a tingle. She knew something.
“What did you and Tony Patterson talk about, over at the Watergate three weeks ago?” Jake asked.
Her face turned white. She looked at him for a moment, as though he’d turned into a viper, then shook her head and pushed her chair back. “Oh, no.” She turned to Westinghouse. “I won’t talk to this man anymore.”
“What the hell is going on?” Merkin asked.
Jake had pushed the situation to a breaking point: now he could back away. Now he had to back away, since he didn’t have anything else, other than the one cryptic suggestion.
“The Wisconsin thing could blow up on you. There’s a murder now,” he said. “At this point, none of this has to go anywhere. It’s just a bureaucratic dance. But, Tom, I suggest that you and Jay sit down with Ms. Packer and have a talk. She’s been acting in your name and you’ve got enough problems already. This Bowe thing is a nightmare. There’s going to be serious trouble, and even if you’re on the very far fringe of it, it could still be the three-to-five at Marion, Illinois, kind of trouble.”
“Ms. Packer hasn’t been acting in our name. If she’s been acting in any way, it’s on her own. The RNC has nothing to do with . . . anything.”
Jake smiled: “I wish I could take a tape recording of that back to Bill Danzig. He’d put you on TV.”
Merkin didn’t smile back: “We’ll have a chat about this, and I’ll get back to you. Soon.”
“Do that.”
On the way out the door, he gave Merkin his private phone number.
“If you hear anything, call me anytime. I mean it: three A.M.” He said good-bye, nodded at Packer without smiling. They were already snarling at each other when the door closed behind him. He backed out through the building security, and figured that about the time he got to the bottom of the steps, they were putting the red-hot rebar on the soles of Packer’s feet.
Maybe something would bleed out; and maybe not.
But from the way Packer was acting, he thought it probably would.
8
Jake hadn’t expected to hear from Howard Barber until after lunch—but Barber called back as he was on his way home.
“Can you tell me what exactly you want to talk about?” Barber asked.
“Not on a cell phone,” Jake said. “Basically, I spoke to a friend of yours last night, and she said that I should get in touch with you. About her husband.”
“Ah.” Pause. “I’m in Arlington. Where are you?”
“Burleith, north of Georgetown.”
“Why don’t I come there? One o’clock?”
Jake would have preferred to see Barber at his office, to get a look at it, to make a judgment, but couldn’t turn the offer down. “That’d be great.”
Jake had one egg left, so he fixed himself a last egg-salad sandwich, then went out to his stamp-sized backyard to swing a golf club, working on his hip release. Get ready for summer. He made fifty swings, struggling not to lose his bad leg on the follow-through, and was sweating when he finished. He’d just put the six-iron away when Barber arrived.
Howard Barber was a tall black man wearing a steel gray suit, a black golf shirt, and opaque blue-glitter sunglasses with a phone bug dropping to one ear. Jake saw him clambering over the ditch in the front yard, and went to get the door. Barber had just rung the bell when Jake popped the door open.
Jake said, “Mr. Barber? Come in. I should have told you about the construction. I should have had you come around back. . . .”
Jake took him into the study, pointed him at a reading chair in the corner. Barber sat carefully, looking around the office, then crossed his legs and leaned back. “Nice place,” he said. “That new sidewalk ought to kick the value up.”
“That’s what my neighbors tell me,” Jake said.
They chatted about real estate values for a moment, then, “I talked to Maddy this morning after I called you back,” Barber said. “She filled me in on what you’re doing. I don’t understand how I can help.”
“She said you were Lincoln Bowe’s closest friend. Bowe may have been kidnapped and murdered . . .”
“What do you mean, may have been?” Barber said, frowning, and leaning forward. “The boy’s dead. Decapitated. Burned. I mean, Jesus Christ, what do you want?”
“It’s not all that clear,” Jake said. “The FBI is chasing a suspect, but there are problems, quite frankly.”
“What problems?” Barber asked, frowning.
Jake shrugged. “Anomalies. Like the fact that he had a huge collection of guns, but left one where it would be found, and it may be the gun that ties him to Lincoln Bowe. Like the fact that he’s become invisible. Can’t find him, nobody’s seen him. In the opinion of a number of people, the suspect was set up and is probably dead himself.”
Barber said, “Huh.” Then, “I could think of reasons for all of that. If I was trying. I mean, the guy obviously ain’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.”
“Yeah, but I’m not trying to alibi him,” Jake said. “I’m noticing anomalies.”
“Okay.” Barber lifted his hands, slapped them down on his thighs. “All I can tell you is, Linc and I talked the day before he disappeared. We were going to play golf the next week, but by that time, he’d been gone for four days. I didn’t know he’d disappeared until I saw the first story in the papers. Then I called Maddy down at the farm, and she told me.”
“Was he . . .” Jake hesitated. “Look, I’m trying to ask if he had any gay friends that you may know about, who were passionately involved with him. I’m trying to figure out if this could have been a relationship thing.”
“Gay murder.” Barber settled back, shaking his head.
“Yeah.”
Barber exhaled, said, “Shit,” looked at the ceiling, then said, “I can’t tell you for sure. He was not, mmm, monogamous. But I don’t think . . . I think if he was involved in something really hot, really difficult, he would have told me. The sex cooled off for him the last few years. Gays get older, too, you know.”
“Never thought about it,” Jake said.
“Well, it’s true. Anyway, I could call a couple of people and ask.”
Jake smiled. “I’d really prefer to do it myself.”
Barber shook his head. “Linc moved in political circles. Political gay circles. Some of the people are already out, but some absolutely couldn’t afford to be outed. You’re doing staff work for some Bible-thumper from Alabama, you get outed, you lose your job.”
“I wouldn’t out them.”